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CHAPTER NINETEEN

GRACE

A part of me is pleased the Nakoa didn’t totally lie to me.

When we met up with Packs Bravo, Delta, and Echo, they report back on their recon missions too.

I was so wound up in grieving an empty watery tomb, that I hadn’t realized their was a possibility Nakoa and my pack did mean to save Faith.

But now, with my last hope extinguished, I cling only to the plan.

Our new tasks is simple: locate Blue Fox in the Lighthouse, the heart of the prison complex.

A place they’ve avoided searching for some time, until the grid fell, and laid its treasures open for the taking.

“Apex?” Emilio asks, glancing at me for a millisecond, “I–”

“Dismissed,” Nakoa says with a sigh, anticipating his objection to me going. I’m not put off. I am dead weight compared to everyone. But unlike these alpha men fighting over men and the hope of a bonded mate…

I glance around, confused to see Leo is gone. Ever my fateful shadow, it’s rare that’s he’s gone for long. So where is he.

“Grace?”

Raphael reaches for me, falters, then tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. His eyes.

“We did mean to save her.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to. If I had agreed sooner, maybe we could’ve found her body.”

“You went out of your way for a Wilder, for a woman you hate. Thank you, regardless, Raphael,” and I mean it.

His eyes are unreadable, hard sapphire stones set in his skull. He blinks, grits his teeth, groans.

“First,” he says, and the bitterness in his tone is palpable.

“Go find him and bring him back. He’s looking after the orphans for a while. But we don’t have time. Tell him Nadège will feed him if you have to. Just get back by dark.”

“Orphans?” I repeat.

“You’ll know when you see them.”

He scoffs and then presses on, and I don’t move to let go, to push away, since now scars and all, willing or unwilling, I am part of his pack. His omega, if only in name.

“Come back soon,” he says criptically before sending me away.

I don’t

Stray kittens and cats gather at my alpha’s feet. I watch, stunned, as they purr loudly. They’re not drawn only to the food he offers. They’re drawn to him like moths to a burning flame.

His flaming hair catches the wind, rippling like flames dancing in the air. I watch, mesmerized, as hoards of island cats gather, bringing him gifts as well as receiving food and affection.

What the hell is he? Some wicked alpha version of Snow White?

“Open your eyes, princess, and see the island through my eyes. See our home.”

My eyes widen in amazement, as my alpha nudges my backside.

The swing lifts me into the air, and it feels like I’m floating in the clouds.

Mist blankets the forest below, the sights, sounds, and smells overwhelming my senses.

The lush environment no longer looks like a death trap.

A smile spreads across my face, then falters as I look down at my grimy black dress.

I glance behind me, a flash of my alpha’s bare freckled chest confirming what I know deep down inside.

I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve to feel safe, while my sister fights to survive in the north.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, distraught.

The swing stops.

I rip my chin from his grasp, biting back my tears.

“I don’t deserve… I don’t belong…” my voice falters on a whimper. What the hell is wrong with me? My mood swings are terrible these days.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he growls, pulling me into a tight back hug.

“You deserve the world and your enemies’ heads served on a platter.”

Even when he comforts me, his words are so vicious.

And he doesn’t understand. What I mean to say is I don’t deserve to be here, and I don’t belong on this prison with them.

But they way he’s holding me so tenderly breaks through my defenses, leaving me defenseless.

How can a man so cruel, so crazed, sooth away all my pain with a touch so gentle my heart aches?

I get the distinct feeling family means something different to Leo. Maybe even something dangerous. And yet I sink into his embrace as he breathes in my scent, nuzzling my hair with his long, slightly crooked nose, massaging my stomach with a groan.

“You’re getting bigger.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

It seems like such a strange turn of events, killing the pleasant mood. Not that I care if I am getting fatter. I love my body and myself any shape or size, even my semi-feral jungle girl era.

“Curvy and soft. Fed and warm. I want my omega to be all that and more. I want you to feel secure, Grace. Because this is your home.”

It’s harder than a punch to the gut.

I turn to him and beckon him to look at me, and when he does I see a storm of emotion.

“This is my home,” he says. My alpha turns, tossing his scarred hand across the ruined skyline of what used to be a tropical paradise’s capital city.

I shake my head and point to my chest.

“ I am your home,” I whisper, and I mean it with every ounce of my battered soul.

I take my alpha’s hand and lay it over my heart. His emerald green eyes sparkle with unshed tears and confusion.

“ We are your home. Your pack. Your family. And wherever we go, as long as we’re together, we’ll be home.”

I don’t know where these words come from, shocked to my core by my sincerity for my captor, whom I now realize I’ve come to accept as my protector. But my words ring true, and my honesty hurts, because the truth often does.

“You are my home,” he repeats, before adding, “and my fated mate.” Then he kisses me so fiercely, drowning me in his earthy scent, that everything else melts away.

There’s only me and him, Leo and Grace, alpha and omega, pack prince and princess of the feral paradise we call Providence.

“So let’s get the fuck off this island…” I smirk, and peck his check, “my prince.”

“Not so fast, my princess,”

I turn to walk away, but his strong arms drag me to the ground before I can leave. I shudder, bare my neck, and then his fangs are in my neck.

“My omega,” Leo all but purrs as his fangs retract. Not into his mouth like some werewolf. No, his sharp canines simply pull out of the deep puncture would now overlapping Nakoa’s at the back of my neck.

The ferocity of Leo’s thrusts take me by surprise, unable to move as he hooks his powerful arms under my calves, clawing my ass.

I’m a ball shaped for his pleasure as he rams inside of me, madness dancing in the forest green depths of his eyes.

Like the dangerous jungle consuming the island, I’m terrified and transfixed by his gaze.

“My handsome hunter craves my heart,”

“And your cunt.”

Somehow they make that word sound right.

You’re my first. You’re my last. I want to make things right.

It is special to me.

I blush, the tingling in my cheeks unmistabkle.

You’re my first and my last.

Maybe all those years of isolation is finally forcing him to crack, because he reaches down and collars my throat, applying pressure on either side of my neck.

I want to scream in fear, but to my horror, I cry out in pleasure as he steals pieces of my breath away with each thrust and squeeze, until I’m utterly breathless and clenching down so hard my slick gushes around his knot and squirts onto the concrete floor.

“Yes, ah!” He moans, and I squirt again as only an omega can, whimpering as he releases my neck enough so I can breathe properly again. I know I’ll bruise but I don’t care. I crave it now.

“Cum for your alpha, princess,” he demands, and I do, as violently as he claims me.

I just fucked a man who killed so many men before my eyes. For a second time. I know in that fleeting moment of bliss that even if I survive this island, I’ll never truly escape. And now, untethered from the delusion that I ever will, I can admit to myself that I no longer do.